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Business development and advice

Work with other companies

Work with other companies

Collaboration can be a great way to grow your business.
We can help your company and community explore innovative business models that pool resources, reduce costs and share risk to enable faster, more sustainable growth.

Consortium co-operatives

The consortium model can be an effective way of collaborating.

Businesses that work together can successfully:

Raise their profile

Access bigger contracts

Reduce costs and share risks

Innovate in new and existing markets in the UK and internationally

This enables smaller businesses to achieve scale whilst sharing the risks associated with business growth.

What are the benefits?

A consortium is a group of businesses coming together to pool resources. It's run on a shared and equal basis for the member businesses and may be used for many activities. For example, for exporting, marketing, sharing facilities or joint bidding for contracts.

Scale - Improved market presence and access to larger contracts in international markets

Scope - Each business offers different strengths to form a strong collective unit

Independence - Not detracting from each individual business’s core business or brand

Low risk - Reduces risk normally associated with growth

Flexibility - Members can choose to join or leave the consortium at any time

Community co-operatives

Community co-operatives are set up to provide services to communities or develop a community enterprise in all sectors, from utilities to distilleries.

We can help your community to collaborate to provide shared assets and services, such as shops and utilities.

If your community is considering pooling resource to develop exciting opportunities where external investment is not readily available, you could access support to set up a community co-operative.

The model allows investment to be raised from individuals who, as owners, are involved in decision-making.

Income may be invested back into community projects or distributed among members.

How we can help

Our services are open to all businesses and communities, who are thinking about collaboration and are located in Scotland. Applications are welcome from organisations in any sector and of any size.

What’s involved?

We provide a free advisory service to help you set up a consortium co-operative or a community co-operative.

We can talk you through the business models and your options as well as advise you on the structure. We'll also provide the required legal documentation.

We'd be happy to discuss your collaboration and work with you to find a way forward.

Find out more

Discover how we can help your company or community pool resources, reduce costs and share risk to allow it to flourish.